Rusha threw her arms around Bailey in a hug, "Good god, I feel like it's been forever since I saw you!"
"Almost six months practically IS forever!" Bailey said, grabbing Rusha's wrist and pulling her into Abercrombie & Fitch. "We have SO much catching up to do, I was so glad you called me this morning!"
Rusha chuckled under her breath, sure that Bailey had no clue exactly how much had happened since they'd last seen each other. "Yeah we do... so how were things back in Jersey?" she asked.
"I hated having to go home because Gram was so sick, but I know my mom needed the help. It was so weird seeing everyone from high school, they all kept asking where Matt was and how things were going down here for us, and I didn't want to tell them his job completely fell through, so I just made it sound like we were practically Hillsborough County royalty.." Bailey giggled and held up a shirt, "What do you think?"
Rusha wrinkled her nose, "Definitely not."
"Okay then.. so anyway, Matt came up, like two weeks after I was gone, and I had to try to tell him that I'd basically lied to everyone.. but he didn't really have a problem with it and played along.. Um, I'm trying to remember what I didn't tell you when I called... Gram died, but I told you that, then we had to stay up there to settle the estate and sell her house, then we finally got back last week, and god we were so glad to get away from there.. BUT ..." Bailey giggled again and grabbed Rusha's hands and started jumping up and down, "We decided to get married!!!"
"It's about damn time!" Rusha laughed.
"I know! We had our six year anniversary while we were in Jersey. He hasn't like, asked yet, but we talked about it, and decided that yes, it was finally time!" Bailey squealed.
Rusha hugged her friend, "Congratulations, that's so cool!"
"You'll be my maid of honor, right? Like, whenever we do finally get married?"
"Of course." Rusha pulled a blue shirt off the rack she was looking through, "Cody would love this."
"Cody? Who's he?" Bailey asked.
"Uh, he's the guy that answered the phone last time you called.."
"Oh, yeah! 'Cause you couldn't get up because you'd broken your leg. How is that? You look like you're doing alright.. how'd you do that anyway?" Bailey asked, rapid-fire.
"It's fine, I'm fine. I got the cast off, like, three weeks ago, finally. Nick and I were playing basketball, and he went to steal the ball, but took me out instead." Rusha laughed.
"He's such a klutz!" Bailey said, putting an orange fisherman's hat on her head.
"Huh.. not too bad." Rusha said, straightening the hat. "Yeah, he's a klutz, but he's a cute klutz."
"You think you and Nick will ever get married?" Bailey asked.
Rusha shrugged her shoulders, "Hell if I know."
~~~~~~
A few hours later, Bailey and Rusha were in their usual post-shopping booth, munching on cheese fries and sipping ice tea, while they looked through their purchases.
"Did you buy anything for you?" Bailey asked, as she looked at the pile of stuff Rusha had bought.
"Ummm... no!" Rusha laughed, "I got some stuff for Nick.. and a few things for Cody.. but nothing for me."
"So, like, what's the deal with this Cody guy? Is he a friend of Nick's or what? Why was he at your house?"
Rusha took a long sip of her tea, trying to figure out the best way to answer Bailey's question. "He's a mutual friend of ours- but I met him, through Nick... he's been living with us..."
"Living with you? Why?!? Oh wait, like to take care of you while Nick was gone?"
"Uh, sort of. He did take care of me while Nick was gone, but he, uh, needed a place to stay..." Rusha immediately felt bad, not so much that she'd just lied to Bailey, but what she was lying about. She wasn't embarrassed about the situation, and she'd gotten fairly used to it, really having no other choice. But Cody was her friend, and wasn't just someone who'd been living with them because he needed somewhere to stay, he was part of their "family" now. She knew Bailey wouldn't understand the circumstances, and didn't want to try to explain, but it didn't excuse her lying.
Bailey dumped more ketchup on her fries, "Oh. How long is he going to be there?"
"I don't know... we like having him around...he's a good guy."
"Isn't that weird, you being in a house with two guys?"
"You have no idea how weird it can be." Rusha replied.
~~~~~~
"I am so glad we did this!!" Bailey said, giving Rusha another bear hug as they walked towards Bailey's car.
"I know, we'll have to get back to our regular shopping schedule now that you're home." Rusha said.
"Totally! Tell Nick I said 'hi!'" Bailey got in her car, "Bye sweets!"
Rusha waved as Bailey drove off, and began walking across the parking lot to her car. She still felt bad, having just brushed off Cody's presence in her and Nick's lives as being more of a good deed than someone they both had some sort of relationship with. She'd gotten to the point of not being so jealous when Nick would opt to spend the night with Cody instead of her, because she knew he'd come back to her. She enjoyed having Cody around, she found it much easier to talk about certain things with him than with Nick. Cody would watch chick-flicks with her, wouldn't tease her if she cried (especially since he usually did, too), and liked to help her get ready any time she went out, all of which she appreciated.
Rusha neared her car and clicked the keyless entry button to unlock the doors and open the trunk. As she was putting her bags in the trunk she heard a familar laugh and turned around to see where it was coming from. Off to her left she saw Cody standing beside his car, talking to another man. Rusha shut the trunk and started to walk over to say 'hi', until she saw Cody leaning towards the guy and giving him a passionate kiss. She gasped in surprise, stopping mid-step. She turned back to her car, and quickly got in, suddenly realizing what had probably been going on. All the times Cody had been gone- he'd likely been with.. whoever that was. She backed out of the parking spot, and drove off, just as Cody broke the kiss and looked up, recognizing Rusha's car as it zoomed past.
~~~~~
Cody followed Rusha home and found her pacing around on the deck when he walked in. He was glad Nick wasn't home now, he needed to talk to Rusha. He knew she had to have seen what happened, and wanted to talk to her about it before she got a chance to tell Nick. He slid the door to the deck open, "Rush?"
Rusha spun around to look at him, "Who the hell was that?!?!"
'She definitely saw.' Cody took a deep breath, "Gavin."
"Gavin? What were you doing with him?!?"
"We've kind of been seeing each other for a while.." he said softly.
Rusha flopped down in one of the chaise lounges. "You're cheating on Nick.."
Cody nodded slowly, "I couldn't help it.. I got lonely when he started paying all that attention to you.. I went out one night and met Gavin.. he's so great.. you'd love him, Rusha.."
"I'm glad he's great.. but still.. what am I supposed to do? I can't just go around pretending I didn't see that."
"I know.. please, I'm just asking you, just to stay quiet for a while.. I guess I just want to see what happens with Gavin.. he just broke up with his boyfriend and I'm afraid I'm just a rebound." Cody said, sitting beside Rusha and grabbing her hand. "Please, Rush?"
"A VERY LITTLE while.. and that's it. You have to do something.. I'm not going to just wait around and let you hurt Nick.. and keep me in a spot like this." she said, sighing.
Cody gave her a hug, "Thank you." He got up and went inside, closing the door behind him.
Rusha stretched out on the lounge chair, thinking the situation felt a little familiar and wondering how exactly she ended up in this position.